


The Warmest Hello to the Coldest Good-bye

by badgerpride89



Series: Five for Fighting [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: BAMF Aziraphale (Good Omens), Backstory, Character Study, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Light Angst, M/M, Pre-Relationship, War in Heaven (Good Omens), cain & abel - Freeform, the horsemen aren't kids anymore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-14 17:15:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20195827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badgerpride89/pseuds/badgerpride89
Summary: It is a strange sort of madness, Aziraphale thinks. They all know what is coming, and soon. No one can stop it.OR:How does a guardian angel reconcile his mission from a supposedly all-loving Almighty with releasing the four horsemen upon the Earth?





	The Warmest Hello to the Coldest Good-bye

The air roils with the weight of a thunderstorm, though the atmosphere remains stubbornly bright and dry like the world could be lit ablaze with a single match. It is a strange sort of madness, Aziraphale thinks. They all know what is coming, and soon. No one can stop it.

That night, beneath veiled, swirling galaxies and with twisting, restless hands, he finds Azrael at the edge of the farmlands, where rocky soil meets the rich, tilled earth. The boy is full grown now, a head or two taller than Aziraphale. His black wings have grown far larger than need dictates, the black edges stretching thrice as long as Aziraphale's own wings and too heavy for Azrael to fully raise off the ground.

**It will happen tomorrow.** He says, gaze fixed on the dancing nebulae above them, as Aziraphale stops just out of arm's reach.

"Ah," Aziraphale says, helpfully at a loss. "Thank you for the warning. I assume you've told Crawly?"

**I have.**

Aziraphale nods. "Good, good. How did he…"

**Hard. He remains.** He wants to flee, Aziraphale knows. Sees it every day in the jerk of his legs, the curve of his spine pointed away, away. Crawly is not made to watch suffering. Crawly’s desire has grown only more pronounced recently. The most tenuous and frayed of threads bind him to this place, this moment, these beings. With the weakest force, they will snap and he will be lost to the desert winds. Aziraphale aches for him, hopes he finds some peace. 

"I see."

Stars dim one by one as they watch. Aziraphale takes a deep breath.

"So, how shall we spend our time then?"

Azrael's eye sockets, and the blue pinpricks of light at their center, pull from the stars and onto Aziraphale's matching blue eyes. He stills his hands under that gaze.

A long moment passes.

Azrael flicks his wing at Aziraphale's chest. Gently, fully cognizant of the moment's fragility, Aziraphale catches it with one hand, bears some of its immense weight. He knows not how Azrael carries such weight on his back. It feels like a rain cloud looks, the promise of peace and renewal after a long, smothering struggle. Beneath the cloud like texture is the solidity of bone and feathers. This Aziraphale knows. He cards his free hand through the feathers, searching by feel for abnormalities and smoothing them over. 

**Tell me a story**. Azrael's plea is soft and high as his voice hasn't been in years.

Aziraphale smiles softly, touched by the request. “Which one, then? Your favorite?”

**No.**

Aziraphale pauses a moment. His son’s gaze pierces him with its vulnerability. He can only respond in kind.

"I served in the war in Heaven," he begins, his low words crackling like cosmic eruptions over celestial syllables. Azrael listens, motionless. "I saw the whole of Creation crumble around me. Watched angel after angel dim and fall like meteorites. I still hear their screams echo around me on quiet evenings. They couldn't die, not then, but in those moments, I wished it, if only to end their suffering."

**And now?**

"I would spare them that if I could, still," he blasphemes into Azrael’s wing.

Azrael chuffs. **Yet here we are, on the cusp of all humanity's suffering and still you will allow it.**

"There are ends to their suffering," Aziraphale asserts, clawing a long broken secondary loose. "You will bring one."

**If that is what you believe.**

"I must believe it," he corrects softly.

**Why?**

“Because I believe in you,” he says. “And I know that you are not malicious. You are Of Her, after all.”

**You know Her Wrath**, Azrael points out none too gently.

“I do. Even so, I have to believe that an end is its own mercy.” Aziraphale pauses a moment and changes the subject. “Where will you go, then?”

**I will be everywhere. ** Confusion laces Azrael’s voice. **From a withered flower and insects snatched in the sky, to the collapse of stars and the destruction in their wake. I will be everywhere at all times.**

“And from that death comes new life,” Aziraphale says quietly. “A rather tidy system, all told.”

**That is one way to look at it.**

“It sounds like you will be frightfully busy.”

**I shall be. **He already sounds weary.

“Look after yourself, if you can,” Aziraphale says, stumbling over the words, “Take some time every now and again to just focus on one singular moment in space and time. Eternity is a marathon, not a sprint.”

**Do not worry for me. I was created for this.**

“Care enough for someone long enough and you will find worry a natural companion, especially when you will not see that person for a long, long time.”

Azrael rotates, kicking dirt and dust as his wings smack Aziraphale. He grabs Aziraphale’s robes and draws him in until they are inches apart.

**Look after him for me. **His words reverberate across the landscape.

“I will. You have my word,” Aziraphale promises quietly, catching and holding the delicate bones of Azrael’s wrist.

In his son’s eyes, he sees multitudes, centuries of Creation spinning onwards, limitless life and death tumbling, spilling out from all directions. It is too much. He closes his eyes, breathes deeply, and leans, just a little, into Azrael’s grasp.

“Be quick with the boy,” Aziraphale quietly, finally asks, eyes heavy and wet with the weight of what is to come.

**Of course.**

“Thank you.”

“Father,” Kushiel calls. 

Azrael fades into the night. Only the lone secondary remains in Aziraphale’s hands. He could weep for the loss. But not tonight.

His younger daughter gives him a full smile which is missing several teeth. Her head scarf is carelessly slung around her neck; as it is dark, she doesn’t need it to protect her increasingly sensitive red eyes. She slinks into the crook of Aziraphale’s arm, wrapping one of hers around his back.

He smiles wetly, pulls her in. She snuggles in closer as he strokes her limp, white hair.

“What have you been up to?” he asks with feigned lightness.

She laughs, breath rattling. “Teaching Eve a few tricks.”

“Oh, really?” he says over the lump in his throat.

She shrugs. “’T’s little things. Don’t shit where you drink, bathe regularly, boil stuff, that sort of thing.”

Aziraphale pecks the paper thin skin on her cheek. “Thank you, dear girl.”

“S’not sporting otherwise,” she says then shifts, nuzzling his neck. 

He holds her tighter. “It’s not to destruction,” she says suddenly, the words tumbling over one another, “Destroying ‘em’s not the point. You know that, right?”

“I do.” 

None of this could have happened if She wanted to destroy humanity. She could have wiped them out before they began.

Kushiel surveys him with a too-puzzled look then nods. After a moment, she adds, “I told her to avoid shellfish, too. I’m thinking of trying something with them. Not a plague, but a reaction, I think. It’d be interesting, the system protecting them doing too good a job.”

Aziraphale laughs in spite of himself. Her enthusiasm has always been catching. “I’ve always admired your creativity,” he praises her gently and she preens. “You take joy in creating and changing, little one. You relish a challenge. I know you will find fulfillment as you go forward.”

She stares at him, only the faintest understanding in her eyes. “Will we see each other again, do you think?”

Aziraphale nods. “I think we will see quite a lot of one another, yes.”

She cackles. “Ya think Heaven’ll come asking for my services? We could work together. Or Ma and me, if Hell asks. Can you imagine it?”

He shudders, awash in phantom screams and supplications. She catches his hand in her own and strokes it. 

“Do not sell your services for us,” he manages, “Not to work with us, not to see us, not us anything. If you wish to see me, I will see you. All of you. No questions asked, no expectations set. Understood?”

She blinks and thinks for a moment. “You really do hate what we are, don’t you?”

He tightens his grip around her once more. “Oh, my dear, you are so much more than the pieces I find painful. Haven’t we taught you that, at least?”

She kisses his palm and gently pulls away. “I have to tell Adam about pigs,” she mumbles, “Be seeing you.”

“I’ll see you.”

He sits in the dirt for a small infinity, his hands clenched into fists. He swallows the questions which threaten to spill from his tongue. Asking Questions is, after all, not allowed, and he already has one disaster on his hands. And why ask questions to which he already knows the answers? He’s not looking for conversation or validation. He hopes and vows in lieu of asking or praying. Hopes he can endure, hopes that Crawly’s soft heart and warm manner will survive this second trial as it did the first, hopes that this will mean something, in the end. That what they have done here matters. Vows to his family, to humanity, deep in the dark of his being where only She can hear. 

Some time later, the stench of rotting wheat alerts him to his second son.

“Really, dear,” he tuts as Dumah sits beside him, snacking on a too ripe fig.

Dumah nods and breathes deeply, releasing the yet to be harvested crops from his decay. 

“Thank you.”

Dumah remains silent. Of all their children, he alone relishes the quiet. And the disruption of a perfectly timed comment or act. Aziraphale learned long ago to wait him out.

He finishes his fig, slurps the oozing juice into a mouth too full of razor sharp teeth. How growing them had pained him. Aziraphale had spent many a night holding him through his whimpering cries. Dumah never has put on weight, despite countless humans handing him scrap after scrap they could ill afford to part with. Crawly had tried fruitlessly day after day just to get them to stop by feeding the boy in front of them. It hadn't worked; Dumah had simply basked in the attention.

“Are you waiting for me to thank you or start some little heart to heart?” he says, pointedly looking at the distant mountains.

“Neither,” Aziraphale says, “I am simply enjoying your company.”

Dumah snorts. “Azrael says differently. He thinks we’re all saying good-bye or what have you. Me personally, I’d prefer to slip away unnoticed. You understand.”

“So why haven’t you?”

Dumah shakes his head. “Damned if I know. I was going to, I’m sick of sitting here twiddling my thumbs. Too many places to go, too many things to do. But...Ma...he asked me to find you first so here I am.”

Aziraphale’s heart clenches at Crawly’s thoughtfulness. "That was very kind of you."

"Kind. Right. There you go again, treating us like some great equalizers of mankind, assigning us traits we can't have."

"Traits you don't have, not can't," Aziraphale corrects.

Dumah furrows his brow. "Oh come on now. You and I both know who will suffer first, the worst when I ride out. Some of those sick monsters will fucking _call_ me, Father, and I won't be able to touch them, not without making it harder for everyone else."

Aziraphale pats Dumah's hand. "There, now, you see. Don't tell me you don't know kindness."

Dumah pulls back his lips, displaying all of his razor thin, sharp teeth. "I'd salt this whole planet and watch them all starve if I could rather than cater to those bastards."

"Ah," Aziraphale says. Really, what else is there to say? Save..."Well, since you cannot salt the Earth and be done with it, might I suggest looking for another avenue? You, above your siblings, are quite adept at socializing with and getting what you want from the humans. And there are other kinds of hunger beyond the physical."

Dumah exhales deeply. "Don't I know it." A beat passes. "I feel it, you know? All of it."

Aziraphale does. Sometimes feeling love as he does is a poison, knowing exactly the lengths someone will go to for it and knowing in advance you cannot change their course.

"It'll take a while," Dumah says after a long moment, "your point about getting rich fucks to do it to themselves. But hey, we've got nothing but time now, right?"

Aziraphale gulps but nods. "Indeed. All the time in the world. And they may yet surprise you."

Dumah rolls his eyes. "Not counting on it," he squeezes Aziraphale's hand, digging each and every one of his bones into Aziraphale's skin. "Thanks, I guess."

Aziraphale squeezes back. "Thank you."

Dumah makes one last trip to the animal pens, presumably to say good-bye to Kushiel. Aziraphale tracks his movement until the darkness and pens obscure him.

"Hi, Dad," Camael calls. Her staff is slung over her back, a slingshot hangs at her hips. Small though she is, no one mistakes her for harmless. Her eyes have darkened from burnished gold to burnt orange, blood and brimstone shining through.

She takes his offered hand and sits beside him. "Azrael says it’s tomorrow," Aziraphale comments, like he is discussing the weather. 

Camael's smile cuts through him. "It will be. Then everything really begins."

"Where will you head afterwards?"

"Anywhere I want to go," she replies. "I'm thinking Egypt. Nice place. Lots of people to fight and conquer."

"And then?"

"Then I go where I will," she says with a low hum. "Why? Trying to avoid me for a few centuries?"

Aziraphale chuckles and tucks a stray strand of her hair into her veil. She allows him. "Not at all," he says faux lightly, "I simply worry for you."

She snorts. "Worry? About me? That's a good one. Do I look like the one you should worry about?"

"My girl, I have always worried after you more than the others. You know that."

"Why?" She snaps and stands. "I'm the one who looks after them. I'm the one who drove off those bandits. I stole the goats because Aaron mocked Dumah for weeks and you two wouldn't do anything about it. So, tell me, Father, why the hell am I the one you're concerned about?"

"Because I know you," Aziraphale responds with growing patience, "I also know that in the end, the monotony of war will drive you mad." He stands and raises a hand to silence her interruption. Mercifully, she complies. "Azrael has all of Creation, from here to the furthest stars, to see and experience if he wishes. Kushiel enjoys creating and experimenting for the sake of doing. Dumah has a long-term goal to see to the end. You, my dear? As far as I can tell, you simply want a fight and you don't much care beyond that."

“And what’s so wrong with that? It’s what I am,” she snarls. “I am War. You don’t know what that means.”

“You may _ be _ War but you’ve never been _ in _ war,” he says darkly. The silver cracks in his essence etch themselves onto his corporation, burning light through his robes. “I served in the first war, girl, and I tell you now, all it is is injury, trauma, and death. Oh the methods may differ but it all boils down to those three facts. I watched the battle rage around me, saw the destruction and the pain and there was no glory, no righteousness, no _ reason _ to any of it. Just a never-ending fight which left millions scarred, broken, and completely changed. It was utterly _ dull_."

"Dull," she spits. "Tell that to Ma or any other angel out there."

"Why were they fighting? Why were we all fighting, hmm? Do tell me," Aziraphale orders, tone more dangerous than any he has used around her. 

"What does that matter?" She snarls.

"That is my point. It doesn't matter to you why we fought, just that we did. That is why I worry about you, because violence for a cause damages everything it touches and then some but the senseless violence you advocate? That destroys utterly. And when it is all over, what will you do? Just thoughtlessly find the next battle?”

"We can't all be like you," Camael snarls, disgust and desperation lining her face.

“Oh, my dear girl,” he says slowly, softly, approaching as one would a trapped predator.

“You are exactly like me, Camael.” The Wrath of God. “I gave you my name for a reason.”

She stares him, flinches violently when he places his hands on her shoulders. He holds on anyway. 

“I am nothing like you,” she spits, her lips twisting as she breaks his grip. “You’re a coward. You think you can run away from what you are and be better than me? That fighting is some great evil you can avoid?!?” 

She shoves herself inches from his face and hisses, “Let me warn you now, Father. One day, you will have to stand and fight for something, maybe even kill. You’ll have no choice, not if you want to protect yourself, the people you claim to love, or even your great Ineffable Plan. And when that day comes, I hope I’m there to see it.”

He sighs, twists his hands, and quietly concludes, “There will come a time when you awaken amidst all your violence and destruction and wonder what it is you are doing. When you will wonder what it is for and when you will break. And when that day comes, I hope you have something to fall back on that is yours alone, beyond all that.”

Camael sneers at him, slings her staff over her shoulders, and walks into the reddening dawn. Shepherd’s warning indeed.

Aziraphale shivers and walks towards their house. Cain paces at the door, flexing and clenching his fists. The poor thing hasn’t slept in several days. He stops as Aziraphale approaches, ducks his head and lets his curly hair hide his dark expression. Aziraphale places a soft hand on the boy’s shoulder. He meets Aziraphale’s gaze with startled eyes. 

“You’ve done well,” Aziraphale whispers to him. Truly, he has. Resisting Camael’s call as long as he has can’t have been easy.

The boy snaps, bawls into Aziraphale’s chest. Aziraphale blinks, pats his head awkwardly.

“Be at peace,” he nudges, suggestion laced into the words. “Go to your mother now. Rest.”

Cain sags, tension bleeding out of him like an old wound. It won’t last, but that is not the point. 

As he leaves, Crawly crosses the threshold, joining Aziraphale the slowly lightening morning. Terror lines every sharp point, brands every angle. 

“What are we doing here, Aziraphale?” he whispers, tone torn between panic and accusation.

Aziraphale sighs, weariness weighing down the sound. “I don’t have the energy to argue with you right now, Crawly.”

He’s wrung out and it’s only going to get worse. But Crawly is spoiling for a fight to distract from his fear and won’t be deterred.

“Are you really going to let this happen? You’re the fucking Guardian of Earth, for somebody’s sake, do something! You’re supposed to protect them!”

“Don’t you think I know that, Crawly,” he snaps, lashing out painfully in response to the demon’s words. “I would protect humanity a thousand times from what’s to come but I can’t. Only they can defeat War, Pestilence, Famine, and Death, we can’t do a single thing to destroy them. Even if we’d abandoned them in the desert, humanity would have sustained them, you know it as well as I.”

Aziraphale’s eyes water and his voice breaks, “I cannot protect them from their own creations, Crawly.”

“I don’t undersstand,” Crawly stammers, “They-they feel human but they’re not actually-”

“No, I don’t expect you would,” Aziraphale says, not unkindly. He has been contemplating this for far too long. “When humanity took the apple and the sword, they became as the Almighty in their own right. Oh, not individually but collectively, they have all of Her power and imagination and with that, our children came into the world. Humanity created them and only they can defeat them.”

Crawly thinks for such a long moment Aziraphale begins to hope the conversation is done. "Wait, hang on, you think that's Her justification for letting all of this happen? That they're somehow "Her equal?" How the blazes is that right? Like, you don't let friends drive drunk, you take the car keys and shove 'em in taxi or whatever, you _don't let_ them keep making bad choices," he finishes, his voice high and near hysterical.

"They're not drunk, Crawly," Aziraphale retorts, crossing his arms to keep from shaking the demon. "It's recognizing that your children are grown and must lead their own lives. You can nudge them one way or another, advise and warn them but in the end, it's their lives and choices, not yours. That is what you do with an equal."

"So just let them sink or swim without training, huh. Never took you for cruel, angel."

"They already Know, or did you forget?" he snaps once more. Crawly slinks backwards, the movement more snakelike than should be possible in his man-shape.

"I will never understand you. How can you do nothing? How can you just sit here and bloody watch?"

Aziraphale softens. "I don't believe we have done nothing. I believe that we have made a difference, no matter how small," he says quietly but forcefully. "As for watching, I believe someone must bear witness. But that doesn't mean you have to."

Crawly blinks at him, shock and faint hope shining in his too vulnerable eyes. "Wha-"

"Avoid Egypt for a few centuries," Aziraphale says gently, releasing him. "And thank you. For everything."

Crawly stares at him, stunned, like he's the one caught in a hypnotic gaze. Aziraphale will miss him but not so much that he will try to keep him here, now.

"Thankss."

In the blink of an eye, Crawly transforms and slithers south. Aziraphale watches until he disappears over the horizon. 

A scream screeches across the landscape, followed by an unearthly sound. The sky goes dark, the first solar eclipse, and the world _bends_ once more, like it did after the apple. Reality rewrites itself on top of what came before to incorporate these new forces. 

"It's done, then," Eve says as she approaches, far too much Knowledge sparking in her brown eyes. 

"Y-yes, yes, it is," Aziraphale replies as she wipes the tears from her face. 

She takes his hand with her tear-stained one. It burns like hellfire. "Come. Help me."

"Lead on, then," he promises.

* * *

_“So, giving the mortals a flaming sword, how did that work out for you?”_


End file.
